Postcrossing Blog

February is a busy month in the mail calendar, and we can’t wait for it to start! Are you ready?

I love a good mail challenge, and since February is the “Month of Letters”, it is time to dust off all that special stationery and put pen to paper! It’s the perfect opportunity for reconnecting with family and friends, sending a Valentine card to your special someone, saying thank you to the helpful people in your life… or simply surprising strangers across the world with postcards! 😉

The rules of the Month of Letters challenge are simple:

• Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture or a cutting from a newspaper… anything goes!
• Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

That’s it! The challenge started back in 2012, after American writer Mary Robinette Kowal decided it was time for a break from the internet. She spent a month offline, and asked her friends to communicate with her through letters. The results were relaxing and intimate, so she decided to invite others to join, sparking a flurry of correspondence.

Another happy mail-related event coming up is Mail Carrier Appreciation Day, which happens every year on February 4th. This is the day to celebrate our trusty mail carriers, who make it possible for this hobby to exist by delivering all our postcards!

The date falls on a Tuesday this year, so make sure to prepare something nice for your mail carrier and give them a smile, for instance, pour your gratitude into a thank you note that you’ll deliver (or affix to your mailbox) for them to discover on their rounds. I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of their day week!

If you can, take a photo of what you did to celebrate this special day, and share a link to it in the comments! 😊

February is a busy month in the mail calendar, and we can’t wait for it to start! Are you ready? :)

I love a good mail challenge, and since February is the “Month of Letters”, it is time to dust off your special stationery and put pen to paper! It’s the perfect opportunity for reconnecting with family and friends, sending a Valentine card to your special someone, saying thank you to the helpful people in your life… or simply surprising strangers across the world with postcards! 😉

The rules of the Month of Letters challenge are simple:

• Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture or a cutting from a newspaper… anything goes!
• Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

That’s it! The challenge started back in 2012, after Mary Robinette Kowal decided it was time for a break from the internet. She spent a month offline, and asked her friends to communicate with her through letters. The results were relaxing and intimate, so she decided to invite others to join, sparking a flurry of correspondence.

Another happy mail-related event coming up is Mail Carrier Appreciation Day, which happens every year on February 4th. This is the day to celebrate our trusty mail carriers, who make it possible for this hobby to exist by delivering all our postcards!

The date falls on a Monday this year, so make sure to make something nice for your mail carrier and give them a smile in the beginning of the week. Pour your gratitude into a thank you note that you’ll deliver (or affix to your mailbox) for them to discover on their rounds. I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of their day week!

If you can, take a photo of what you did to celebrate this special day, and share a link to it in the comments! 😊

February is a busy month in the mail calendar, and we can’t wait for it to start! Are you ready? :)

I love a good mail challenge, and since February is the “Month of Letters”, it is time to dust off your special stationery and put pen to paper! It’s the perfect opportunity for reconnecting with family and friends, sending a Valentine card to your special someone, saying thank you to the helpful people in your life… or simply surprising strangers across the world with postcards! 😉

The rules of the Month of Letters challenge are simple:

• Mail at least one item through the post every day it runs. Write a postcard, a letter, send a picture or a cutting from a newspaper… anything goes!
• Write back to everyone who writes to you. This can count as one of your mailed items.

That’s it! The challenge started back in 2012, after Mary Robinette Kowal decided it was time for a break from the internet. She spent a month offline, and asked her friends to communicate with her through letters. The results were relaxing and intimate, so she decided to invite others to join, sparking a flurry of correspondence.

Another happy mail-related event coming up is Mail Carrier Appreciation Day, which happens every year on February 4th. This is the day to celebrate our trusty postmen and women, who make it possible for this hobby to exist by delivering all our postcards!

The date falls on a Sunday this year… but don’t let that stop you from making something nice for your mail carrier. Pour your gratitude into a thank you note that you’ll deliver (or affix to your mailbox) on Monday February 5th, when they make their rounds. I’m sure it’ll be the highlight of their day!

If you can, take a photo of what you did to celebrate this special day, and share a link to it in the comments! 😊

Remember Marina’s Scarf of Friendship that we mentioned here on the blog last year? Marina (aka 167marina) from Russia had been collecting bits of yarn from all over the world to knit a super scarf that embodied the unity and friendship between different nations.

It took a whole year, but she finally finished this project late last year and took some photos with her friend Dasha, to show you the result. We thought the photos looked so lovely, we had to make another post about it! Have a look:

Isn’t that amazing? 😍 The colourful creation ended up being over 10 meters long and including all kinds of yarn, from wool to mohair, angora, cashmere, acrylic and even bamboo…

As well as postcrossers, she asked for help from all her friends and ended up with bits of yarn from 60 countries and 6 continents! Marina says:

“Each thread that I added to the scarf, was associated with a different country. I imagined the hot Bahamas, rainy London, night in Hong Kong, ancient palaces of Osaka, vivid festivals of India, the rock art of Egypt… Knitting is like traveling the planet! This scarf is a string of the Brazilian jungle, African desert, from the cold of the North Pole (Spitsbergen archipelago) and South distant Antarctica. They did the long and hard way: they were taken by snowmobile, helicopter and boat, by ship, by plane, by rail and finally by road.”

That sounds really inspiring — bravo Marina!

What about you? Planning any cool postal projects in 2018? Do share in the comments!

Have we mentioned how much we enjoy seeing postcrossers getting creative with their hobbies? A few years ago, we wrote about a Postcrossing-sourced quilt and also showed some beautiful knitted and stitched postcards on our Instagram. Today we have another Postcrossing-inspired project to share!

Marina (aka 167marina) is a postcrosser and a knitter from the Tombov region in Russia. She tells us that her small town of Rasskazovo is often described as the “capital of knitting”, because most people like knitting there. It seemed natural to combine the two hobbies somehow… so one day, Marina decided to create a special scarf with yarn sent to her by other postcrossers from all over the world. She called it the “Scarf of Friendship” and posted the request on her profile. Soon enough, colourful bits of yarn started arriving through the mail, along with her postcards…

And voilà! Right now, the scarf has the very impressive length of 2 meters, and features yarn from 23 countries! It’s still a work in progress though, as Marina will keep knitting it till the end of the year — so if you’d like to participate, send her a message. :)

Here is her dad, modelling this awe-inspiring project:

Isn’t it wonderful how random strings of yarn from all over the world can be connected into a beautiful scarf? Come to think of it, this sentence sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it? I guess we’re just fans of connecting things, be it through postcards or yarn! 😊

Well done, Marina — we look forward to seeing the end result!